Spark of Light: Short Stories by Women Writers of Odisha

Introduction Valerie Henitiuk and Supriya Kar A woman who pours “all the darkness within her” into a coffee mug, age slipping out of a body “like a tree shedding its bark,” a woman’s outbursts evoking “the smell of burnt chilies”—these are but a few of the many strik- ing images that one encounters in the short stories collected in this book. Originally written in Odia, the language spoken in the eastern Indian province of Odisha, the stories span a period of more than a century—a period that witnessed the rise of the Indian independence movement, the expansion of education, and the demise of the British Raj, as well as the partition of India and Pakistan, persistent conflicts between Hindus and Muslims, and, more recently, the growth of regionalism and the impact of economic liberalization. Amidst the political and social upheavals of modernity, one constant has been an ongoing struggle to reconcile old and new, to arrive at some sort of integration, however uneasy, between customs and attitudes grounded in tradition and ideas and ways of life imported from the West. These stories, written by women who are natives of Odisha, depict a world that, while continually in transformation, remains almost stub- bornly familiar. Detailed in the stories are perennial themes in women’s lives—loving yet conflicted relationships; the difficulties and rewards inherent in the roles of mother, daughter, sister, and wife; the yearning for personal fulfillment and an independent life; the challenges of growing ix doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991674.01 Introduction old. But we also find poverty, religious intolerance, lawlessness, instab- ility, and injustice. The characters in these stories must find their way in a world badly disfigured by human callousness and cruelty—quiet, cold-blooded indifference, as well as the hatred and violence that rob people of their dignity. Perhaps more than anything, what distinguishes these stories is their insistent honesty, their refusal to look the other way. The Odia Short Story: A New Medium of Expression The opening story in this collection—Reba Ray’s “Sanyasi” (“The Men- dicant”)—was the first Odia short story written by a woman to appear in print. “Sanyasi” was published in 1899 in the recently founded literary journal Utkal Sahitya, roughly a year after the publication of Fakir Mohan Senapati’s “Rebati,” generally regarded as the first short story ever written in the Odia language.1 While very different, these two early stories both explore the theme of vulnerability within the dynamics of family and culture. “Rebati” tells the story of a young girl’s pursuit of learning, at a time when formal education was a male prerogative. When a series of calamities subsequently destroys her family, Rebati’s illiterate grandmother turns on her, blaming her for the ill winds of fortune. But if Senapati’s adolescent heroine is shown to be vulnerable to the oppres- sive weight of tradition, Ray’s male protagonist, Shiva Prasad, stands in no more enviable a position. Ray’s story dramatizes her hero’s inability, as a dutifully submissive son, to protect his young bride from his own vicious, domineering mother. In the end, after losing his newborn child and then his wife, he flees his home and becomes a wandering mendi- cant—a sanyasi. Ray published her short stories in a range of journals, later collecting them in a volume titled Shakuntala (1904). She also left an impressive body of poems, the most notable of which were anthologized in 1903 in Anjali (Offerings). This literary pioneer founded and edited Asha, a women’s magazine, as well as the literary journal Prabhata, regularly pen- ning essays on social issues for both. The spirit of rebellion is embedded in the names of these publications—Asha means “hope,” while Prabhata means “morning” or “daybreak.” In 1905, Ray founded the Model Girls’ High School in Cuttack (then the capital city of Odisha), the first school to provide high school education to girls in Odisha. Her writings reveal x doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991674.01 Introduction a deep interest in women’s issues, as well as other concerns of the day, including harmony among different religious sects, personal integrity, spiritual growth, and nationalism. Around the turn of the century, short stories were beginning to be written and published in many other regional languages of India. As Sisir Kumar Das (1991, 303–4) points out, literary journals were in large meas- ure responsible for the rise of the short story: The growth of the short story was partly regulated by the growing demand for stories by the reading public who preferred a complete story to parts of novels serialised in journals and periodicals. The editors of various journals, therefore, encouraged the popular novel- ists of their time to contribute stories to each issue. The situation was very much similar to that in contemporary Europe and America where journals played a dominant role in the development of the short story. In Odisha, the journals Utkal Sahitya (founded in 1897) and Asha (founded in 1899), as well as Mukur (founded in 1906), all catered to an emerging literate public, while offering a privileged space for both male and female writers to explore new literary forms, among them the short story. In Odisha (as elsewhere), storytelling was traditionally a social activity, with tales from Sarala Das’s fifteenth-century Odia version of the Maha- bharata recited in temple courtyards or Jagannath Das’s fifteenth-century Bhagabata read aloud by priests in a room known as a bhagabata tungi, which soon became a standard feature of Odishan villages (Nayak 2013). Such ancient tales and devotional poems, from which listeners could some- times draw parallels with their own experiences, were an integral part of people’s day-to-day lives. With the advent of printing, however, reading—essentially a private pursuit—rapidly became a popular recreation among the educated classes. The short story was, like the novel, a West- ern genre, and both brought with them a new focus on the everyday and on relationships among ordinary people. In contrast to traditional narra- tives—folktales, mythological stories, legends, oral histories—readers were now offered characters and situations that felt immediately familiar to them, grounded as they were in contemporary social and political realities. These literary developments coincided with the rise of Odia nationalism, which reflected a growing rebellion against not only British colonial xi doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991674.01 Introduction rule but also the hegemony of Bengali language and culture.2 Many writers were also Odia nationalist leaders and were eager to create a body of literature that would set Odisha apart from neighbouring Bengal, with its robust intellectual and literary traditions. Accordingly, they produced novels, plays, and poems that emphasized a distinctively Odia identity, along with short stories that did the same. Early in the twentieth century, nationalist sentiment was becoming a key theme in Indian literature generally, and plays and novels were imbued with patriotic fervour, while also engaging in social critique. While, initially, the short story was com- paratively free of political elements, writers soon began to use the short story as a vehicle for the expression of dissent. Like writers elsewhere in India, Odia authors were caught up in the political and social unrest of the early twentieth century, depicting in their works the old order giving way to a new one, with traditional values challenged by modern ideas. In addition, the domain of Odia literature ceased to be dominated by men, as more and more female writers began to express themselves in fiction and nonfiction, focusing on the shifting complexities of women’s lives.3 Spark of Light: An Overview Owing to opportunities provided by the expansion of education during the late nineteenth century, women with the skills and confidence to express themselves through writing began to appear on Odisha’s cultural scene. Although they came from various social classes and backgrounds, most belonged to upper-class, liberal families. Over the course of the century, more women would join their ranks, finding in the short story a powerful tool for not only self-expression and self-discovery but also critical reflection on their social and cultural surroundings, which so often threatened to submerge them. While it is impossible to discuss in detail each of the stories in this volume, we highlight a few recurring and inter- woven themes below. Several of the authors featured in this anthology explore how gender stereotyping limits the options available to women. In “Misery Knows No Bounds,” by Sarojini Sahoo—a feminist writer who often deals can- didly with the topic of female sexuality—we encounter a young girl who ends up trapped to her thighs in mud. Despite her apparently hopeless xii doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991674.01 Introduction situation, she remains convinced that she will be saved: this is not how she is destined to die. The heroine’s transgression has been such a small thing, an understandable and virtually blameless action: in a natural desire to demonstrate that she possesses something of value, she brings to school a special pen that she received as a gift. When, on the way home from school, a classmate accidentally drops the pen into a weed-choked canal, the girl wades in to retrieve it, becomes trapped in the mud, and is then left alone as darkness gathers. Rejecting any passive, fatalistic response, the girl insists repeatedly that even if no one comes in search of her, she is going to survive this. After all, an astrologer has assured her that the real threat to her life will be fire.

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